


keep me in your clouded minds

by starstrung



Category: Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 12:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4137462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrung/pseuds/starstrung
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Owen knows that if these raptors don’t imprint on a human the second they’re out of the shell, months of preparation are going to have been for nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep me in your clouded minds

He gets the call a few hours before dawn. Not dressed, blinking away sleep, and fingers fumbling on the coffee machine controls, he learns that the raptors are hatching ahead of schedule.

“Where’s Barry? He was supposed to be the one they imprinted on. That’s what we’ve been preparing for.”

“He’s on the mainland and won’t be back until morning,” the scientist on the phone says. “Believe me, I would rather have _him_ here. But you’re the only other trainer we’ve got who’s willing to work with raptors.”

The irritation in his voice is not helping, but Owen tries to ignore it. He knows he doesn’t have as much experience as Barry, doesn’t have that cool-headed calm that comes from years of working with vicious animals. Barry had been one of the youngest trainers when he first started, and is held in very high esteem by virtue of still being alive with all of his limbs attached.

He also knows that if these raptors don’t imprint on a human the second they’re out of the shell, months of preparation are going to have been for nothing.

“I’ll be there in five,” Owen tells the scientist, and hops on his motorcycle.

When he gets there, the egg shells have just begun to splinter. The one with the largest egg is born first. Twelve hours later, the other three break out of their shells. Owen picks egg shells off their faces and holds out strips of meat. He feeds them if they behave but when one of the younger ones snaps at his fingers, Owen makes it a point to feed all of the rest of them first before finally giving that one her share.

Right now they are just reptilian instinct and newly sated hunger. He watches them tumble around the small pen with each other, following the oldest one’s lead. They are already forming a bond with each other and also, he hopes, with the strange stupid human who’s just had the misfortune of being imprinted upon.

There’s no handbook on how to bond with your raptors. This isn’t something that’s been done. Barry and he have been the only ones who’ve even thought it _could_ be done. There’ve been cases of other animals imprinting on humans, like ducklings. But these aren’t ducklings.

As far as job promotions go, he thinks he would rather have passed on this one.

-

“They want you,” Barry says. He’s come to wake Owen up, but it’s unnecessary. Owen has been awake for the past ten minutes, listening to the sounds of screeching raptor babies. He knows from experience that ear plugs do nothing against it.

Owen groans into his sleeping bag. He hasn’t slept in his own bed ever since they hatched. The raptors need constant attention, and he’s the only one that can go near them without losing a finger. He’s still working on that.

Barry’s help has been immeasurable though. He can’t get too close to the raptors without Owen there with him, but he’s also the only one in the facility who interacts with them without looking through a rifle scope.

Barry had been disappointed when he learned that he’d missed their hatching, and Owen had wanted to laugh. He’d do anything to trade places right now. Having four loud, sharp-teethed, carnivorous multi-million dollar babies was _not_ what he had signed up for. But no one could have anticipated that the bond would be this strong.

“The docs are saying that when the oldest one gets big enough, she’ll be able to handle the rest of them better. But until then, you’re going to have to step in,” says Barry. He is one of the few people in the facility who talk about the raptors like they’re the intelligent beings that they are. It’s one of the many things Owen likes about him.

He doesn’t know how so many people can look into those amber eyes and not see that deadly perception, that razor-edged consciousness that grows more precise and calculating each day. He can see it the most in the oldest one. Every day he spends with her, he can _feel_ her developing into that ruthless strategic huntress that her prehistoric ancestors were.

He just wishes they would let him sleep.

“Fuck it,” he says, and gathers up his sleeping bag from the bench he’s been using as a makeshift bunk.

“What are you doing?” Barry asks, alarmed.

“I’m going to spend the night with them. It’s the only way they’re going to calm down.”

“You can’t be seriously thinking about _sleeping_ in there. What if something happens?”

He would probably care more about how dangerous this is if he had slept more this week. But he hasn’t. And he knows he can’t keep this up. “Tell you what, if you hear my screams of pain, you’re more than welcome to send in a team.” He opens up the gate just enough for him to slide into the enclosure. He sees Barry shake his head and go to tell the others.

As soon as he’s inside the enclosure, the raptors go quiet. He can see them rustling in the underbrush that rings the enclosure, but the dimmed light from the lamps doesn’t reach them. The back of Owen’s neck prickles, and he suddenly has to stamp down on primal instinct, the one that says he needs to _run_.

Owen sighs and lays down his sleeping bag on a patch of flattened grass, making each movement slow and deliberate. As he settles into it, the oldest raptor is the first one to come into the dim light.

“You happy now?” he asks her. He makes sure to keep his voice cold and stern.

She watches him, head cocked. Then she lets out a noise, guttural and sharp. Out of the shadows, the three remaining raptors step forward in a synchronized motion that he hasn’t seen them use before. He’s torn between wonder and horror.

They make their way towards him, strangely cautious, and he realizes it’s probably because they’ve never seen the sleeping bag.

“It’s just cloth, all right?” Owen says. He lifts the oldest raptor up and sets her into the dip in the sleeping bag between his knees. She works her talons into it, slightly tearing at the fabric, and chirps in confirmation.

Satisfied with this, the raptors surprise him by burrowing into the sleeping bag with him as he lays on his side. The oldest one takes first choice, picking the spot at the hollow of his throat, curling up underneath his chin. Two of them settle at his back. The fourth makes a show of wandering around and nosing at his fingers, before Owen finally lifts up his hand, and lets her lay beneath his palm.

 _This is weird_ , he thinks, unwilling to say anything out loud in case it disturbs them.

Owen is keenly aware of the _nearness_ of them. A tail beats restlessly against his spine before finding its way under the neck of his shirt and staying there. A set of gleaming talons are inches away from the vulnerable inside of his wrist. And the oldest one has her sharp teeth practically at his throat. She can probably feel his pulse hammering against her skin, just like he can feel her hot breath across his collarbone.

He doesn’t think it’s possible for him to fall asleep like this. But in the end, exhaustion wins.

-

The docs are right. Owen doesn’t need to sleep in the enclosure again after that. The oldest one’s position as head of the pack seems to have been cemented enough for the rest of the raptors to be satisfied with her presence during the long nights.

“I guess she’s their alpha,” Owen tells Barry, as they stand up on the walkway and watch the raptors snap playfully at each other’s haunches.

“Nah,” Barry says, taking a long pull from his beer. “You are. She’s the beta.”

Owen freezes, the lip of his beer bottle inches from his lips. “Me? No way. I can feel them deciding whether or not to eat me every time I go in there.”

“But they follow your lead. They know you’re in charge of their food. When they misbehave, they don’t get any. You’re their alpha.”

When Barry says it like that, it starts to make sense. “Yeah, I suppose,” he says, and takes a gulp of beer.

Barry laughs. “Sound a little happier. This means we were right. It’s possible for a human to join their hierarchy.” He claps Owen on the shoulder, careful to avoid the spot on his back where a raptor got a little too cuddly. That hadn’t been fun to wake up to.

“But that doesn’t mean I can control them. It just means I’m the one that’ll be challenged, if there’s going to be a challenge.”

Barry nods thoughtfully, accepting this sobering thought for what it is. “We still need to name them, you know. The docs are still calling them by their embryo numbers.”

Owen makes a face. He’s never referred to them as their numbers, not even in his head.

“How about Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo?” Barry says, pointing at the raptors one by one, in the order they were born.

“Not Bravo,” Owen says, looking down at the oldest raptor. As if she knows they’re talking about her, she looks up at them, head tilting to the side. Her scales catch the light and glint iridescent blue.

“Blue,” he names her.

-

Owen and his girls, the rest of the team calls them. What he’s managed to do with the raptors is unprecedented, and he sees it in the apprehensive looks he gets after training sessions.

Despite being wildly inappropriate, considering they’ll probably never be _his_ girls, not until he can manage to not smell like tasty prey to them, the name still sticks. Blue, Charlie, Delta, Echo. They’re his girls.

Two months old, and they go up to his hip. Their claws are as long as his fingers, ends tapered into deadly points. He’s seen them tear into the carcass of a steer with a viciousness that needed a cleaning crew to wipe the gore off the enclosure walls.

His girls. Barry and he are the only ones who see how beautiful they are. Beautiful in the way a crack of lava in the skin of the world is beautiful. The way a lethal virus is beautiful.

Two months in, and he’s yet to be challenged. They’ll get a little rough with him, especially if he keeps food from them, but Blue will still defer to him, and the other three will still defer to Blue.

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t get hurt. The raptors play with each other, mock wrestling and snapping at each other, and there have been a few times when Owen has gotten dragged into it. His torso is lined with marks.

It happens again one day, and this time Charlie pounces on him, claws twisting into the leather of his jacket. Owen falls backward, the weight of the raptor pinning him down. Charlie lunges forward, teeth snapping closed an inch from Owen’s throat.

There are shouts from overhead, and sounds that indicate that guns are being raised. Owen can’t see anything. Charlie is still on him.

“It’s all right,” Owen says, calmly but loudly enough so that the rest of the team can hear him.

“Get out of there.” It’s Barry’s voice.

“Yeah,” Owen says, heart hammering. Outward, he makes himself look calm. He reaches up and pushes Charlie’s snout forcefully away, like he does sometimes when they play.

Charlie snorts at him, but she gets off. Owen gets on his feet. He resists the urge to turn around and run back to the gate. If the raptors see him backing down, he doesn’t know what it’ll do to the uneasy dominance he has over them.

“On me,” Owen says, and raises a hand. Four sets of eyes track the movement.

“Good,” he says, keeping his tone neutral. He slides his hand into the pouch at his hip, and throws each of them a strip of meat. It’s a training exercise that they’ve done countless times.

Only after they eat and begin playing with each other again, does Owen slowly back out of the enclosure. When the gate closes behind him, he looks down at himself. His shirt is stained with blood, the skin of his chest gouged by Charlie’s talons. Luckily, it’s not too deep.

He sits on a bench and lets a medic look at it. Barry hovers at his shoulder, arms crossed and silent.

“All right, what is it?” Owen says, when he gets sick of it.

“You know you can never go back in there again, right? Not unless they’re in their restraints.”

“Yeah,” Owen says. “I guess we knew it was coming.”

The medic finishes bandaging him up, and gives him some painkillers to swallow down. As soon as he’s done, Owen stands with a wince, and goes to the gate, watches the raptors through the bars.

It surprises him how much it feels like loss.


End file.
